Tuesday, August 15, 2017

Whatever you do, have a heart and do not share this picture, no matter how tempting it is.

And do not place it above the fold while writing about it.

I do not know a lot about Peter Cvjetanovic, outside of the fact that he is upset that a photo of him at a white national rally has gone viral. The one thing that I do know for sure is that he is a dumbass. My proof that he is a dumbass? He got photographed at a white national rally!

The same can be said of everyone who was ever photographed at a white national rally on the side of the fence that seems to be a little pro-Nazi, you are a dumbass (outside of the leadership, who I assume are making money selling white national merchandise and therefore, want their photos to go viral).

Maybe Peter Cvetanovic did not have a father to teach him not to be photographed doing stuff you do not want connected with yourself. Maybe Peter Cvetanovic did not have teachers who would ask, "Do you really want that on your permanent record?" Maybe Peter Cvetanovic did not receive the memo that we are now living in the age of Twitter and Facebook, a world of retweets and shares, where your identity can be learned within an hour if you are dumbass enough to be photographed doing something that other people are going to be upset about. Maybe Peter Cvetanovic was asleep the day that the history class covered the wearing of masks when you are engaged in stuff that will make you look like a murderous bigoted f***head when historians get around to writing history.

Or maybe Peter Cvetanovic is proud that he is a f***ing Nazi, and forgot that most people are not. Or what we like to call--being a dumbass.

Personally, I love the whole "It is wrong to try to get Nazis fired from their burger-flipping jobs." You do realize that we live in a world where if a fast food employee spits in a customer's burger and tweets about it, they are DOOMED to be fired. Do you really want a Nazi touching your food?

(As an experiment, I encourage pro-Nazi restaurant owners to openly admit that they are white nationalists--let's see if your customers want Nazis to have businesses in their neighborhoods.)

In the fifties, it was ok to get people fired for being communists. In the thirties and forties, in one country (Nazi Germany), it was ok to kill Jews and other minorities, as well as political rivals. Oh wait, two countries did that (let's not forgot Communist Russia). In the Reconstruction, some felt it was ok to enact laws to keep minorities in their proper places, and remind them that former slave owners were still controlling the local government (why do you think there are all those glorious Confederation war memorials? They serve a purpose to remind minorities that they are living in a world where they were considered property and not human beings). And let's not forget the torture and conviction of heretics during the long dark history of Christianity.

History shows us time and again that bad things happen when you are a member of a group that other people do not like.

And the ultimate goal of white nationalists? Oh yeah, to be able to persecute people that they don't like!

Oh, they claim to be patriots. I imagine that if Tweeter and Facebook existed in the days of the Founding Fathers that the British would have been tweeting, "Does anyone know this person standing beneath the Liberty Tree?" and that the Americans would have been on Facebook saying, "Does anyone know this person giving aid and comfort to the British?"

And what does the study of the American Revolution tell us? Oh yes, cover up your face and identity when doing things that can turn around and bite you in the ass. Proof that the Founding Fathers were not dumbasses? Oh yeah, there is a high number of pen-names being used in the Federalist Papers. And no one asked for the evidence of their political beliefs not to be shared.

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Sunday, August 13, 2017

It was the greatest day of his entire life, Minotaur Jones thought as he watched the news. His views was going though the roof; merchandise was flying off the shelves of his online store; and his predictions were coming true--the Crusade to Wash Evil Out of America had begin.

Or at least, it would begin as soon as the Presidential Official Real News Network confirmed what he already knew--that evil Black Mexican Muslim Socialist Liberal Lizards had enlisted evil Jewish Witches to destroy America--let the cleansing of America begin. Given the number of deaths, President Earl Midas would finally have no choice, but to utter those long awaited words, "We must purge all non-whites and non-Christians from the United States of America."

It was quite simply glorious.

Minotaur wondered if it was too early to summon up his militia, the Bullet-Proof Wizards of the Pure Bloods. Surely, the President was going to need all able bodied men and women to pick up arms and drive the impure out of the country. Looking at the most recent comments, Minotaur smiled--there was no need to issue a summons; his viewers, his noble and pure followers, were already talking about assembling.

It was quite simply glorious.

Minotaur imagined the President pinning the medal of Greatest American Ever on his chest, after a successful campaign to drive the unbelievers and corrupt from their fair lands. And his militia would suffer no losses; after all, they had the bestest magicks and were bullet-proof. Everyone would have to acknowledge that he was the greatest Adept that the world had ever seen, greater than even the son of God (who could not be the greatest simply because his mother had been Jewish). It was going to be glorious.

Sure, it was a shame that people lost their lives. Well, it was a shame that true believers and those of pure blood had lost their lives. It was always a shame to lose those who supported his ideas and who represented the ideal humanity, humanity as God intended it to be before the reptilian aliens descended on the Garden of Eden and tempted Eve with their impure dark flesh.

But as for any non-white, non-Christian lives lost, well, they were all going to have to be purged from the human race anyways. The sooner they were eliminated, the sooner that almighty God could descend on consecrate humanity to embark on their next great adventure.

First, the United States of America needed to be restored to the original holy vision that the Founding Fathers had for it--an all white, all Christian nation. Then the United States would have to liberate the other countries of the world from their non-white, non-Christian alien lizard supported governments, and would have to purify all the alien influences lurking in the colored skins and false religions of the world. Then God would descend, bless humanity, and humanity would raise up into the stars carrying the crusade to the home worlds of the corrupting lizards, liberating the universe from their evil influence.

And he, Minotaur Jones would be on the front lines of the whole glorious crusade. He would be a six star Admiral-General, the leader of righteous humanity, leading his army of star marines (his militia would be officially made part of Earth Defense by the immortal President of Earth, Earl Midas); he would lead the charge as his bullet-proof wizards across the universe making it into the perfected image that God originally intended. It was going to be glorious.

"Oh goody," Minotaur Jones exclaimed as the announcer of the Presidential Official Real News Network announced that they were about to replay the most glorious moment in human history. He better hurry and microwave his popcorn, and pour himself a tall glass of American whiskey before the replay started--he wanted to commit this glorious moment in all its splendor to memory.

This NovelRama project is not funny at all--I thought that it was supposed to be a satire.

As many people know, I make jokes about Trump followers being willing to make Trump President-for-Life. Please note that I consider such comments by me as jokes, not predictions.

But consider the following, the willingness to delay an election until Trump can fix the voting system...something that can't be done--because it is a non-existent problem (the number of illegal voters is too low to have made a difference--proof? Trump still won the election though the college system).

Such a move, if made, would make him President-for-Life, because well, if you think the problem would be fixed--ever--ever--then you don't know Trump and what strong arm governments do.

There is a good reason to have a Presidential election every four years--the instance you are willing to throw that out, well, you have missed something important about how the Constitution was set up to try to avoid having a tyrant elected and enthroned for life. Not that I am saying that Trump is a tyrant....but once you open that door, it is a slippery slope, and only a matter of time before you get someone willing to use strong arm politics to become President-for-Life.

Tuesday, August 8, 2017

It was the absolute worst day of his presidency, President Earl Midas thought to himself as he watched the unfolding drama playing on the news. Everyday was the worst. While he could not imagine how tomorrow could be worse, he knew it would be. It was the story of his entire presidency--each day worse than the day before.

He was getting far too old for this. For god's sake, he was an hundred and nineteen. Or was he seventy? Or thirty? He was so old that he could not remember how old he was.

And there was no end in sight for his presidency. He was the most popular President in the history of the United States of America. His supporters were the most loyal, and their numbers increased all the time. At the beginning of his presidency, there was hope that it would end. But then he got re-elected to a second term. There was still hope for him--then his followers repealed the twentieth-second amendment, the quickest change to the Constitution in the history of America, and he was elected for a third term, and then another...and now, it felt like he had been in office forever. Quite simply, he was now President-for-life. Sure, every four years, someone ran to oppose him, but his supporters constantly reelected him--his opposition never got enough votes to weaken his hold on the presidency.

His hold, he thought, more like his supporter's hold. He hadn't even been sworn into office when he realized that the office was the worst possible job in the entire world. But his supporters did not care, all they cared about was remaking the country in their own image, and he was their tool for doing exactly that. True Americans, they called themselves. More like true nagging citizens, he thought.

True nagging citizens--not to be confused with devoted nagging citizens or real nagging citizens. And nothing like independent nagging citizens, or caring nagging citizens. And completely different from the never zealous nagging citizens or the beautiful powerful nagging citizens. And nothing in common with the liberating nagging citizens or the galactic nagging citizens, or even the sympathetic nagging citizens. And definitely not at all like the never voting nagging citizen, who still thought that their opinions and desires should be addressed by the government, and the undeserving nagging citizens who sucked up government resources, and the undefined nagging citizens who made every freaking decision into a randomized outrage. And absolutely definitely not anything at all like the illegal and undocumented non-citizens, who not only nagged but also somehow managed to vote every freaking election, no matter how many of them were deported from the country.

To keep things straight, President Earl Midas often thought of them as the animals that the illegal political cartoonists drew them as. His true Americans with their symbol of the majestic lemming against the horde of unholy unicorns, cowardly lions, flying monkeys, groping octopuses, colorful and deadly poisonous jellyfish, brave panthers, Frankenstein monsters, angry bowls of petunias, slimy hydras, Cheshire cats, vampiric mosquitoes, insidious ink-blobs, carpenter ants, and electrifying will-o-wisps. He wasn't quite sure how his supporters overcame all the assembled opposition every freaking election, but they did.

And the true nagging citizens were all waiting for him to chirp about the horror unfolding on the television. He could not remain silent; he could not wait to find out what was really going on. No, he had to condemn someone, setting the angry mob against some villain, because his supporters demanded this from their President. He looked at the cell phone in his hand, and thought about flushing it down the toilet before going to his desk and signing the letter saying that he had enough and just wanted to go home to the trailer park that he grew up in. But no, his supporters would not let him do that.

So he started to punch in a condemnation of the horror on the screen...

Basically, an occult themed magazine is a deep money and labor pit which, more times than not, end up costing the publisher far more than what they are getting back.
And these problems have been around since at least the 80s small press market. I can't tell you the number of times I had conversations with local zine publishers during my time as an interested observer that boiled down to this laundry list.

Some occult themed small press magazines from the 90s.

Over half of these were published from someone's dining room table.

[Please note that number five only showed up in the last decade, but would have totally existed earlier if the internet would have been a bigger presence in the 80s and 90s.]

Thursday, August 3, 2017

A lot of people think that the life of a satirist is easy. After all, you just sit around, observing life, and then you make jokes about the events you are observing until the events are no longer recognizable and your stories could not possibly be true.

Well, it is not that easy...for some people insist on living a life of satire, walking though life being nothing more than stereotypes, and generally making the work of the satirist harder than it should be.

The satirist had a devil of a time trying to make this satire be stranger than the events that he was commenting on.

First, there was the state of politics as he was writing it. No matter how strange and bizarre the previous day was, the next day was even more stranger and bizarre than the day before. The universe was rapidly headed to hell in a hand-basket one hundred and forty characters at a time. It is a sad state of affairs when you know that your best jokes are going to be topped by a five in the morning, straight from the bathroom chirp.

[Author's additional note: I have been informed by Chirper that if they knew that the President of 'Murica was going to govern though their platform that they would have never invented it. PoofPhoto and HeadScroll also like to point out that their platforms were designed for fun and cat photos, and not for destroying the world either. Well, technically, HeadScroll was meant for coordinating projects among college students--they were as surprised as the rest of us about how many college projects involve cats sitting in boxes.]

Second, there was the ongoing mental health crisis among occultists of all stripes. If you do not believe that this is true, the author dares you to follow the occult scene on any of the aforementioned social media sites. Within an hour you will see more madness and bloated Napoleon-like egos than the doctors of Bedlam, Arkham, and Belliview see in an year. For real fun, suggest that all occultists should be on meds, though one might want to leave early to avoid the inevitable rabble armed with flaming torches and pitchforks that follows such a comment.

Third, there seemed to be an unlicensed time machine (or maybe a couple of dozen) involved in the events that the satirist was faithfully documenting. We will see evidence of this periodically throughout this fantastic tale of magic and wonder. For now, let's observe what just happened to the satirist.

"Yeah, I have the perfect name picked out for my satire. It is M--k W--s. What? When? Where? Hang on, what was the website again? Oh sweet baby Jesus! The f**ing bastard has gone and trademarked the name of the title I was going to use."

The author sighs, "Bloody hell, I am now going to have to come up with an even stranger sounding title. How the hell did he pick the exact same title that I was going to use?"

"Magic? Divination?" The author strokes his manly Viking sorcerer beard. "No, it is that damn bloody time machine. Maybe if I am lucky, the Great Gherkin will use it to travel back in time and kill off his grandfather before his mother was conceived, and I can have my title back."

Tuesday, August 1, 2017

The theme for this particular Hop is Respecting the Divinationary Arts.

When I was a kid, my Wiccan aunt gave my mother a Magic Eight Ball. Now for most people, a Magic Eight Ball is just a novelty item, a joke if you will. Not to my aunt, she could get accuracy out of a Magic Eight Ball. Her secret? "Respect the Magic Eight Ball." In other words, it was not to be treated as a toy, but as an actual sacred object. This was one of my first lessons in divination (if not the first).

The essence of this lesson has influenced how I deal with other divination systems, including Tarot.

If you look back towards the beginnings of the history of Tarot, you encounter a lot of stuff that makes it look like Tarot was more of a game than a legitimate divination device. And there is nothing wrong with that...says the man who has been known to use dice from a Dungeons and Dragons game in place of the Golden Dawn ring and disc (think: Ouija board with a pendulum).

And yes, I have been known to treat Tarot as a game. But in all fairness, I treat most things like they are a game. It is one of the things I learned to do to survive a childhood full of child abuse. And it probably does not help that I am a writer either. But then again, due to my aunt's rule, I tend to treat games as serious divination systems.

Tarot is a story telling game...which a level of scary quantum entanglement built in.

And there is where my respect for the Tarot comes in. I do not know how or why (beyond some half-digested quantum physics analogies) Tarot works to predict (or in the case of active magic and initiation--bends) the future, but it does. The universe seems to be ran by a storyteller, and we are all characters in his/her/its tale.

And the universal storyteller seems to like the symbolism of the Tarot. Once you start to dive into the symbolism of the Tarot, you start to see the symbolism bleed into your daily life. See three bums drinking out of a brown paper bag--see the Three of Cups. Wrestle with your cat--be the Strength card. Work in a restaurant--live the Eight of Pentacles.

In the urban fantasy novel, Last Call, Tim Powers has one of his characters taught by his dad not to ask questions in front of the cards. In this case, the character was referring to poker cards, descendants (or cousins) to our Tarot cards. I have learned to apply that same rule to my own life--there is nothing like playing Uno and find oneself reading the cards in play to remind yourself that the symbolism of Tarot can bleed over into other card games.

(It should be noted that the first fortune telling I did was in high school using a poker deck and instructions by Witch Queen Sybil Leek.)

But I can't stop just at not asking questions in front of "cards." I got to be careful about asking questions in general, for the entire universe sometimes acts as a giant Tarot deck for me. And when it does, I cannot help but to read the universe as a deck of cards.

Or maybe it is the universe reading me. One can never be sure about things like this when one is a character in a story.

"I see a Tarot card showing a Magic Eight Ball on a Ouija board. We could be here a while."

Answer: The Secret Tarot--Marco Nizzoli (1998), published by Lo Scarabeo

The Secret Tarot is my most used Tarot deck, something that surprises some people because they assume that my most used deck would be a Golden Dawn deck. Honestly, I find Golden Dawn Tarot decks harder to read, in part because the Minors do not have human figures and actions in them. While the Golden Dawn structure serves as a scaffolding for me, it is more of a back-of-the-mind thing; I really enjoy the individual touches that non-GD decks have--it might be an artist thing.

There is also that little fact that outside of Golden Dawn, AA, OTO, and BOTA influenced people, most need a clearer (and perhaps simpler) Tarot deck. I definitely would not use a Golden Dawn styled Tarot deck while reading for non-initiates--the cards simply do not resonate enough with your average non-initiate to be much use while doing public readings.

Major Arcanum

The Major Arcana of the Secret Tarots.

I could spend a lot of time talking about various cards of this deck and what I find interesting about them, but I am going to confine myself to just talking about a few of them.

The Lover: This card shows a young man presented with a choice of two women, one refined, and the other a little saucy showing him her underwear. I find this a nice illustration between the choice between virtue and vice, proper appearances, and just having a sinfully good time.

The Wheel [of Fortune]: This card is a throwback to earlier versions of this Major Arcana. On the top of the wheel, there is a winged monkey king with a sword (flying monkey!), descending the wheel is another monkey in a skirt (kilt), and there is a dog in a clownish costume ascending the wheel.

Justice: The thing I like most about this card is that Lady Justice is dressed in two colors, a green dress and a red cape, combining the two colors (exoteric and esoteric) associated with this card.

Death: In the background, there are two coffins being bore by monks--this reminds me of some of the explanations of Odin's eight legged horse, Sleipnir.

Minors

Wands

The Wand Suit of the Secret Tarots.

I love the fact that there is a rabbit in the imagery of the Ace of Wands.

Cups

The Suit of Cups of the Secret Tarots.

In the background of the ten of cups, there is a girl poking at a turtle with a stick.

Swords

The Suit of Swords of the Secret Tarots.

The version of the two of swords in this Tarot deck is one of my favorites.

Pentacles

The Pentacle Suit of the Secret Tarots.

The five of pentacles has a fashion model (celebrity) being photographed by a camera man.

Little White Book: The little white book for this Tarot deck is interesting and definitely worth a read. It essentially consists of five mini-stories: The Land of Secrets (Major Arcana), The Kingdom of Pleasure (Chalices), The Kingdom of Riches (Pentacles), The Kingdom of Sorrow (Swords), and The Kingdom of Human Work (Wands). It is definitely a LWB that one should hang onto.

Front of the box, and the back of the cards of the Secret Tarots deck.

A Caution: There is a higher percentage of "naked people" cards in this Tarot deck which may offend some people. I once had someone flip out over the fact that there are two naked young boys on the Sun card. I assume that it was a personal matter. Most people are ok with this aspect of this Tarot deck, but occasionally there is that odd one who is more concerned about nakedness than the underlying symbolism.

Summary: As I already mentioned this is my favorite, and most used Tarot deck. I personally find it a charming Tarot deck with a lot of hidden Easter Eggs for those who want to spend some time admiring the artwork of the cards.

About Me

Morgan Drake Eckstein is a novelist and occult writer living in Denver, Colorado. He writes everything from science fiction and urban fantasy to erotica. He graduated from the University of Colorado with two Bachelor degrees (History and Literary Studies). Besides writing, Morgan does photography, book cover and Tarot art, and cartooning. In his spare time, he is an officer of Bast Temple, a small local Golden Dawn lodge in Denver, Colorado (BIORC in the Inner), and writes a monthly newsletter column for the Hearthstone Community Church ("The Open Full Moon People").